The event was horrifying. Bethany Storro, a 28-year-old woman, said a random stranger she’d never met before threw a cup of acid-like liquid into her face, causing severe burns, disfigurement, and nearly blinded her. The attack was real, as are the burns and disfigurement, but the attacker is fictional. Bethany Storro threw acid in her own face to fake an attack.

The story itself was bizarre. Storro claimed that a black woman in her late twenties or early 30?s confronted her outside of a Starbucks, said to her, “Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?” and then hurled a cup of corrosive acid into her face, with her sunglasses the only thing that saved her eyes. (I’m fairly sure you can’t buy acid at Starbucks, unless we’re talking about the electric Kool-Aid type.) However, investigators questioned local homeless people in the area, who said that Storro was alone when she fell to the ground screaming and sizzling from a face full of acid.

Why would she fake this attack? There’s no telling. Maybe she wanted money. Maybe she wanted sympathy.